


Optimus and Megatron's No-Good, Dirty Rotten, Very Bad Honeymoon

by MlleMusketeer



Series: The Brave Shall Heed The Call 'Verse [1]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Animated (2007), Transformers: Prime, Transformers: Rescue Bots
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Honeymoon, M/M, Tags will update as story updates, dimensional shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2018-07-19 16:31:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7369267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MlleMusketeer/pseuds/MlleMusketeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Brave Shall Heed The Call sequel fic, of optional canonicity with the rest of Brave Shall Heed The Call.</p>
<p>Optimus and Megatron are working too hard. So their friends send them off on a much-delayed honeymoon. (It's been four years since they freed Cybertron, after all.) Unfortunately, since nothing can go simply for these two, an engine failure combined with a spacebridge malfunction sends them careening across dimensions. Will the two of them figure out how to get home, or will they be stuck fixing everyone else's problems for all eternity? </p>
<p>Tags will update as fic updates, as the author is not entirely sure where this one is going.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“We’ll manage for an orn,” Strika had said, firmly. 

“Don’t be egotistical,” Ratchet had said. “Of course Cybertron can function without you two. Are you starting to _believe_ the Camienans, Megatron?”

“Your efficiency will be improved by a considerable margin,” had been Shockwave’s observation. “I can give you a percentage estimate, if you would like, but it is a broader range than I would like. The lower margin is around 20%, however.”

“Legally, you’re due at least seven rotations of vacation per stellar cycle,” Strongarm put in at that juncture. “You’re four stellar cycles behind, so legally, of course, you’re required to take that leave immediately. Or I’ll tell Ratchet and he’ll make it an order.” 

“You haven’t had a honeymoon yet,” Bumblebee added. “Come on, you’re due one, rebuilding the planet doesn’t count.”

“I reserved the shuttle last night.” At least Strika waited to look smug until then. 

And with that, they’d lost. The Prime and Lord Protector of Cybertron gave each other a helpless look and went to pack.

 

* * *

 

Optimus was still complaining well after takeoff. He had both stabilizers up on the console (thankfully off) and was going through a datapad. “There’s the new construction in Kaon,” he was saying, “and the reclamation effort on the prison, and the crystal-growers’ society is complaining again about the contracts for the Iacon gardens. Really, this isn’t a good time.”

Megatron rolled his optics. Crystal-growers’ societies. There’d been a time, not so long ago, when both of them _had_ killed in the hopes of dealing with such mundanities. 

“Caminus is throwing a fit over the spacebridge project, of course, and there’s a protest scheduled for tomorrow morning—Primus, I hope someone keeps Strika away from that, it’s a Functionist protest and I _really_ don’t trust her around those crowds…”

“Optimus.”

“Polyhex has a glitchmouse _invasion_ in the service tunnels due to that flood, and apparently half the public transport is down because of it…”

“ _Optimus_.”

_“_ And Swindle’s embezzled a substantial portion of the money for the rebuilding effort in Tyger Pax…”

“We have enforcers for a reason, my spark. You needn’t hunt down Swindle yourself. Or the glitchmice. Do you intend to use the Hammer on the glitchmice? That’s the only thing you can do that a decently equipped pest-control team can’t.”

Optimus looked at him, datapad in one servo. Sighed and tossed the datapad aside. “I feel like I’m leaving everyone else to do all the work.”

“Everyone else has made their opinions on the matter clear,” said Megatron, setting a new course heading. “They want us to take a break. And to do all the work. Far be it from me to argue.”

Optimus huffed. 

“And since we have all this glorious time off,” said Megatron, setting the autopilot, “Why not take advantage of it?” He gave Optimus a particularly predatory look and grinned as he heard the other mech’s fans spin up from that alone. “Come here.”

 

* * *

 

He was deep in recharge when the ship shuddered around them. He sat up fast, already half out of the berth with Optimus sliding down off his back. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” said Optimus, and then the shuttle _screamed_ around them, metal parting under an enormous force. He turned to curl down over Optimus, protect him with his heavier armor. 

The world flared around them, seemed to bleed. A painful buzz of not-sound grew in his audials. Something seemed to tug at him, every plate of his frame in opposite directions. The space under him, in his arms, was suddenly empty. No Optimus. He tried to call for him, but couldn’t hear himself. 

Then, falling. A world slammed into place around him, blue sky, blue sea, a speck of land coming up fast. He couldn’t transform and his jets weren’t responding. Megatron spread himself out as best he could, maximized his surface area. He looked around for Optimus, saw nothing. _Frag!_ He reached for the bond, reflex, couldn’t find a response on the other end. Panic surged through him. “Optimus!” he roared into the screaming wind, and hit the water, hard, went right down through it into the sand at the bottom, systems throwing themselves offline. He fought it, fought the closing darkness, hit the sand at the bottom as his optical suite went offline, closed his vents before the blackness took him.

 

* * *

 

Kade was whining. Heatwave was trying to ignore him. 

“Why do we have to investigate a wreck on the beach? It’s probably a cargo container that fell off a ship or something.”

“Well, that would be a shipping hazard.” So much for trying to ignore him. “Get your feet off my dashboard.” 

“It’s four am, Heatwave. Relax. No one’s gonna see.”

“It’s not anyone seeing I’m worried about, it’s your big dirty shoes _all over my dashboard.”_

“You are _so_ not a morning person.” But the feet were removed. 

_“It’s probably a MorBot,_ ” said Blades over comms, sounding morose. _“An_ active _MorBot_.” 

“It’s probably a shipping container,” snapped Heatwave. 

_“We’ll see what it is when we get there,”_ said Chief Burns, likely hoping to forestall an argument. _“The report wasn’t terribly descriptive.”_

_“Totally a MorBot.”_

Heatwave groaned. “If it’s a MorBot, we’ll deal with it. Calm down, Blades.”

They came around the corner and rolled onto the beach. Kade got out. Heatwave transformed, took two strides over to look at the thing on the beach, and drew in a sharp vent, every system buzzing with terror. 

“Oh no,” he said aloud, taking a rapid step back. Then, “Chase! Doc Greene’s lab. See if he’s got anything that can be used to restrain an extremely large and powerful bot—tell him two Morbots. Blades! Call Optimus, the emergency line, tell him we have a Decepticon. Boulder, Chief, get the others away from here, now!”

“A Decepticon?” quavered Blades, and vanished with an incredible (for Blades) turn of speed. 

“I’m not going anywhere,” said Kade. “Besides, Heatwave, it’s just a robot. It’s not even a MorBot. Why’s it got you so spooked?”

“Yeah, it’s worse. A lot worse. Ever wonder if there’s a reason we’re the last rescue team?” snapped Heatwave. “We were in stasis. No one knew where we were. That’s why we’re alive.”

“Clear as mud, thanks Heatwave.” Kade folded his arms. “No, seriously.”

Heatwave glanced behind them to see if Cody was in earshot. “There was a war,” he said flatly. “One side, _our_ side, are the Autobots. The Decepticons are the other side. And this is a Decepticon.” He gestured toward the unconscious mech’s brand. “Their stated intention was to wipe us out, down to the last bot. And they were built for war to start with. We’re a rescue team. We don’t even _have_ weapons. Am I clearer now, Kade?”

The intruding bot moaned and shifted. 

Heatwave would deny the high pitched noise he made to the end of his function, and he whirled and blasted the intruder with an icy deluge of water to _keep him down_. 

“Why Optimus,” said the intruder, slowly picking himself back up, “I thought we were _past_ that—”

_Stay down!_ thought Heatwave and blasted him again, transforming and driving into him as hard as he could. The Decepticon went down with an _oof._ Heatwave glared down at him, not liking the way the Decepticon smirked back. 

“So be it,” said the Decepticon, and slowly raised his hands, that smile still on his face. “Very well, I surrender.” 

Heatwave hadn’t thought out what to do after that. He kept his hoses trained on the Decepticon, and hoped Chase would get back quickly.

 

* * *

 

_Wham. Screeeeeeceeeeeeccceeeeeeeeeeeeccceeeeeeeeeeeeeeee—_

Starscream groaned. “Earth biota. It gets bigger _every time_.”

He hoped the noise hadn’t woken Megatron. The last thing he wanted was that great big oaf whining at him about how the paint of his precious warship had been scratched by some large bird. “Soundwave, you have the bridge. I’ll go see what made that _racket_.” And not clean it up. Ugh. He’d pulled enough of the things out of his engine to last a _lifetime._

He went up to the flight deck, where there was a cluster of fascinated Vehicons and Eradicons. Several clusters. One group was trying to lift what appeared to be a large mallet. He ignored them and went for the largest cluster, pushing mecha out of his way. How inconvenient. If this were an actual emergency…

He saw what was at the center of that group and stopped, wings flaring. He smirked. “Well, well, well. _You’re_ certainly more interesting than a bird. What’s a lost little Autobot doing all the way up here?” 

The Autobot groaned. There was a considerable paint streak on the decking behind him—he was missing a lot of the paint on his front and sides, and he looked as if he’d had better days. Starscream’s smirk turned into a grin. Once they were done with him, every day of his function would have been better. 

Primus, he was _tiny_. About the size of the Autobots’ two-wheeler. And after hitting the _Nemesis_ , he was still moving. Impressive. 

The Autobot pushed himself up, exposing the brands on his shoulders and chest. Starscream froze.

An Autobot decal on one shoulder. A Decepticon shield on the other. And something he recognized as a stylized version of Solus Prime’s face on his chestplates. 

He wasn’t sure what to do with _this._ “Soundwave,” he said into his comm, reluctant, “I…believe our lord and master would like to see this.”

It drew the mech’s attention to him. “Where is Megatron?” he demanded, urgent and concerned, and lurched the rest of the way to his feet, trying to look between the drones surrounding them. “Megatron!”

Starscream trained a null-ray on him. “Just stay right there, little Autobot. I’ve already called him.”

“He’s all right?” Relief. Curiouser and curiouser. “Where is he? I suppose I should thank you—was any of the shuttle salvageable?”

“Oh, I assure you, he’s perfectly fine. Your shuttle, however…”

The mech looked around. “Where are we?”

Starscream’s answer was forestalled by the arrival of Megatron, who looked none too pleased. “Starscream, what do you mean by—” His optics fell on the new arrival, and he cocked his helm, looking thoughtful. “Who is this?”

“I could ask the same of you.” The little mech bared fangs in a clear threat, which looked completely absurd, coming from someone his size and with obviously Autobot-blue optics.

“I am Megatron.”

Those Autobot-blue optics went very, very wide, and the little mech looked Megatron over with an expression of dawning horror. “Oh,” he said softly. “Oh no.”


	2. Chapter 2

Things were…not going well.

Optimus looked around the deck, at the enormous not-Megatron coming toward him, at what must be Starscream at his side. He was surrounded by bots who were eerily similar, and also advancing on him with intent. Frag frag frag. 

He bolted, slamming into one of those bots with his full force and racing for open air. He outdistanced them all easily, hurled himself at the open sky—

—and came to a screeching, panicked halt, scrabbling for purchase on the decking of what he now realized was a ship, a ship high enough in some planet’s sky as to kill him on impact, if he leapt. He looked back. The not-Megatron was laughing. He braced himself for a fight, realized he had nothing to fight _with_. 

“A brave show,” said not-Megatron, and Optimus’s plating _crawled._ “But unless you can fly, you’re cornered.”

Frag. He was right. He had his grapplers, but that was about it, and he might be able to use them more effectively later if he didn’t reveal them now. After a very long moment, Optimus held out his wrists. 

He had to find Megatron. Which meant he had to be alive.

 

* * *

 

It was an hour later. Discomfort had happened. Admittedly, not much of it—they’d sprayed him down with some material that had paralyzed him. 

_Wise,_ Megatron thought. He could have ripped the lot of them to bits quite easily. But he was coming to the slow realization that they weren’t much of a threat—every last one was a purely civilian model, and he had yet to see a single weapon. His attention fixed on the red firetruck who led them, gruff and concerned, and he smiled. 

So. Another young version of Optimus. This one was certainly a little rougher around the edges, but it was something of a relief to see Optimus as he might have been without Sentinel and Magnus’s meddling. 

Though he seemed to have a very different team. Including a flyer. Curious indeed. Megatron settled himself and watched. Hm. Human friends—nothing like Sumdac and his daughter. A whole family of them. How _adorable._ Though how atypical of Optimus to select the most difficult of them as his ally, and how atypical to hear him _snap_ at the human. 

If it weren’t for his own anxiety over the wellbeing of his own Optimus, he would settle back and enjoy the show. As it was…

This was _uncomfortable._ Far, far too much like the last time he was an Autobot prisoner. His plating shivered with dislike, which simply earned him a flinch from his guard, the little helicopter. 

He gathered that the bot wasn’t exactly the most competent—the younger Optimus had told him to keep far away and shout for help if the Decepticon so much as moved a finger. 

“So,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“I’m not supposed to talk to you,” said the bot, rotors flaring. 

“Charmed, I’m sure. You do know that the war is over,” said Megatron, trying to shift his weight and failing. He could seethe about that, or continue charming the little flyer in front of him. “Haven’t your commanders told you?”

“No! Well…no. Not that we’ve heard from Optimus in a while, but no.”

Interesting. So the firetruck wasn’t Optimus after all. “There you are, then. It’s such a messy, difficult business to end a war. He and Megatron are up to the audials in negotiations and treaties. They want it to last, after all. So they haven’t notified you yet. You’re not on the front lines. You’re not in danger.”

“Well…” the little flyer looked down. “Yeah…I guess.”

“Not that what you do isn’t absolutely _vital_. Rescue work is not for the faint of spark. It takes someone with great courage, who doesn’t need constant praise. Bots like that are very rare indeed, people who will put up with all the work and none of the glory. Frankly, I _admire_ you.”

The Autobot’s rotors flared a little at that. “Thank you!”

“Going back into an area that everyone else is fleeing? No, you must be very brave indeed, little Autobot.” He was trying not to smirk. The mental image of Optimus’s expression if he found out about this was warding that off well enough, even though he knew damned well that this was perfectly justified. The Autobots had confined him, after all. They were _enemies_. He was justified in doing whatever he could to get out.

The Autobot looked down again and shuffled his stabilizers. “I just wish I were a little less scared of flying,” he muttered. 

“What?” He drew it out, layering on the incredulity. Which was all fake. He could tell that the Autobot flew like a brick, from the few moments he’d seen the little thing in the air. “You fly very well, I thought. My alt is a helicopter as well. If it’s confidence you need, I’d be _quite_ happy to help you, once this unfortunate misunderstanding is sorted out. It helped me enormously when I first started to fly, knowing someone was there to catch me.” All lies, of course. He’d never been afraid flying. It felt good and free. Getting down him down out of the air had been his instructors’ bane. 

“Really?” 

“Of course. We’re allies now. Once your commander has spoken to Optimus, and this whole mess is tidied away, and I am freed of this rather uncomfortable confinement, I shall take you flying. Show you how to make the most of your new alt mode.”

“Uh… thank you?” The Autobot looked worried. “But…uncomfortable? It shouldn’t hurt, Heatwave said…”

“Oh, no, it doesn’t hurt, not much at all,” Megatron assured him. “And it’s such a small price to pay for goodwill between our peoples. No, no, I am sure I can bear it until Optimus arrives. Quite sure.” He allowed a flicker of uncertainty to cross his face at that. 

“Oh no,” said the Autobot, and looked even more worried.

“But enough dwelling on what can’t be fixed,” said Megatron. “What is your designation, little Autobot? I cannot call you little Autobot forever.”

“Blades. My name’s Blades.”

“And mine is Terminus. Pleased to meet you, Blades.” He winced theatrically. When the Autobot looked concerned, he looked sheepish. “No, no, don’t worry at all. I am perfectly well.”

The door opened again, and the young not-Optimus came in. “Blades,” he said, a warning note in his voice. Megatron looked as innocent as he could. 

“Um,” said Blades, looking completely guilty and bumping the tips of his forefingers together. “Heatwave? Are you sure that we’re not hurting him, holding him like that?”

Heatwave looked at Megatron. “He’s fine,” he said gruffly. “A frag of a lot better than what he’d do to us. Look, Blades, go help Dani with…whatever it is the humans are doing.”

Blades nodded and vanished rapidly. 

“So. What is to become of me?”

“I’ve contacted Optimus Prime,” said Heatwave. “He’ll be here shortly. You’re _his_ problem, not ours.”

Megatron’s optic ridges shot up. _Prime_. “And when will that be?”

The response was a glare. “Don’t intimidate my team.”

Megatron snorted. “I seem to do that by existing. Is it entirely composed of newsparks?”

The sheer rage on the other mech’s face stopped him dead.

“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t have anything to do with that, now would you.”

Interesting. That implied the other rescue teams had been killed early on in the war, likely by Decepticons. His counterpart had to be fairly ruthless.

He felt a pang of worry. Hopefully, Optimus was looking out for himself. Hopefully, he’d had the sense to find the Autobots or go to ground.

 

* * *

 

If Starscream poked him one more time with that fragging shock prod, Optimus was going to remove a limb, at least.

Once he got free. 

“Is there even a point to this?” he snapped, pulling at the cuffs. “I can guarantee that I know nothing of interest to you.”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said the mech that everyone else called Megatron. Optimus glared at him. “Perhaps we might start with a name? It will certainly forestall further unpleasantness.”

Optimus snorted. “I seriously doubt that. Starscream’s obviously having far too much fun to stop jabbing me with that thing just for _a name_.”

Not-Megatron chuckled. “True enough. But _I_ am finding your attitude wearing, little Autobot.”

Optimus’s gaze flicked down to his claws. “Fine,” he said. No way in Pit was he giving them his real name and title—if this were one of the universes the Matrix had shown him, Optimus was a very different mech. And if it were his own, they might well decide to take him hostage. So he went for the name he’d used in the Academy, when he and Elita and Sentinel had snuck out to Maccadams on their evenings off. “Orion Pax.”

Megatron moved. Claws clamped around his neck, drawing energon. He felt the metal creak under the strain, his vocalizer pinging him a warning about inadvisable levels of pressure. He stilled, far too aware of how close those claws were to vital energon lines.

“If that was a joke, it was not a very good one,” said not-Megatron. “I’d advise you to tell the truth.” The servo tightened. “I’m sure you know what will happen if you don’t.”

If he died, his Megatron would too. Optimus stared down into the purple optics of his captor. He’d follow through with that, no question about it.

Still, he hesitated. He had no reason to think this Megatron would believe him. And the truth might well put his own Megatron in greater danger, something all his programming screamed against. Optimus Magnus, Lord Protector to Megatron Prime? Who would believe _that?_

Megatron’s optics narrowed. His claws tightened. “Do not think you are so intriguing that I won’t kill you,” he growled. 

“I have no other name to give,” said Optimus.

“Foolish.”

Starscream reset his vocalizer. “If I may… Lord Megatron, when he first landed, he said he was looking for _you._ ”

Megatron glanced down at Starscream, up at Optimus. “This is not Orion Pax,” he said. “He _moves_ wrong. A predator. Someone has trained him—more than that, he has trained himself, and that is something Orion Pax would never do.”

“I’m not saying he’s Orion Pax,” said Starscream. “But he was looking for you. Or… someone else, with your name.”

Megatron looked between them again. “There is no other.”

“Not here,” said Starscream, with a sly glance up at Optimus, gauging his reaction. “But the next universe over…”

Megatron shook Optimus. “Are you suggesting this impudent scrap is _Optimus Prime?_ What a very sorry universe _that_ would be.”

“Oh come on,” said Optimus before he could stop himself. 

Megatron looked at Starscream, his expression as good as saying, _See? Not Orion Pax._ Then his attention turned to Optimus again. “Is Starscream correct?”

Optimus scrambled for an answer that wouldn’t get him slagged. 

“Are you looking for a mech with my name?”

Frag. He heard Megatron’s fusion cannon come online, a low hum. “Yes,” he allowed at last. 

“Interesting. Why would that be?”

“He’s my…traveling companion.”

The blow caught him in the midsection, knocking the air out of his vents. 

“The truth.”

“ _Conjunx endura_ , my mate.” He hated it, but he had to stay alive. They were both dead if he torqued this Megatron off.

“Is that why you have this?” A finger tapped his Decepticon brand. Optimus nodded. “Yet he allowed you to keep this?” A tap to the Autobot badge.

“There was no allowing involved,” snapped Optimus. “I _chose_ to keep that. It’s part of who I am, and _my_ Megatron respects _that_.”

“ _My_ Megatron,” said this Megatron, and raised his optic ridges at Starscream. 

“Charming,” said Starscream. 

“And your name?”

Frag. Frag frag frag. No good way out of this now, not with a fusion cannon at his spark, and Starscream laying the groundwork. “Optimus Magnus,” he said. Megatron’s expression prompted him to add, “Lord Protector of Cybertron.”

“Lord Protectors need Primes,” said Starscream, mocking. “So, Optimus Magnus, who’s your Prime?”

“A question to which we already know the answer,” said Megatron, grinning like a shark. “Primes and Protectors have always been spark-bonded. What an interesting thing you’ve caught us, Starscream.” 

He lowered the fusion cannon. Optimus vented, a short burst of relief. But it wasn’t exactly good news. 

After all, he’d just told this Megatron that his own Megatron was on the planet, that he was worried about him. He didn’t want to know what Megatron might do with this.

He didn’t particularly want to find out. 


	3. Chapter 3

“We’re on our own,” said Heatwave. “Optimus can’t make it out here until the current emergency is dealt with. Ratchet didn’t tell me what it was, but he implied it had to do with the human military. They won’t be available for a while.”

“Then what do we do with the Decepticon?” asked Blades. He looked around. “I think we might be hurting him…”

Heatwave rolled his optics. “We’re not hurting him, Blades. It’s fine. It’s an immobilization beam Doc tested on Boulder last week.”

“It was intended to hold large masses in place during rescues,” said Boulder. “We figured that if it could restrain me, it would have a pretty good range of effectiveness.”

“But he _looks_ so uncomfortable,” said Blades. 

Heatwave gritted his dentae. “We’re not releasing him. If Boulder says it’s fine, it’s fine. The Decepticon could just be trying to trick us. You should know better, Blades.”

“Hello, he has a name? Terminus?”

“Sounds fake.” Heatwave folded his arms and glared at the lot of them. “We’ll sit tight until Optimus gets out here, understood? Blades, no going near the Decepticon.”

“But I don’t think he’s going to hurt anyone—”

_“Blades._ ”

Blades stopped mid-sentence. Looked down. “Sorry,” he said, very quietly. 

“We’re the only rescue team left,” said Heatwave. “Megatron made very sure of that. The Decepticon is fine. Boulder can tell you that much. So I’m not risking any of your lives on the off-chance of making him more so. Blades, stay away from the Decepticon. Chase, you watch him.”

Chase bumped his index fingers together in a gesture that looked like one of Blades’s. “In point of fact, human law states we cannot hold him for more than twenty-four hours.”

“Well, then we’d better hope Optimus gets here before twenty four hours are up.” Because he had no intention of letting the massive killing machine in the next room kill the last rescue team. If only Optimus were here! Blades was all spark and no sense, and he worried about Boulder being talked into things, and as for Chase…

There was a _reason_ this team was being kept away from the front lines. 

He sighed. Maybe he needed to get Chief to back him up. At least Optimus had fully briefed him about what to expect, about how the Decepticons had hunted and systematically killed the other rescue teams, how Chase and Blades were all but newsparks, just past their final upgrades and Boulder was only a trifle better, and how he, though older, had been within the first solar cycle of his command when they’d been knocked into stasis. As badly as he wanted to join Optimus’s team, he knew the rest of his team needed him—and that he’d be a very junior member of Optimus’s team indeed. 

He went out to check on the Decepticon, who just stood there, looking calm and thoughtful. He didn’t like it. 

“There’s something I’m not being told,” said the Decepticon after several long minutes. 

Heatwave laughed at him. “Of course not,” he snapped. 

The Decepticon cocked an optic ridge. “So defensive, little Autobot. What exactly have I put my stabilizer into? These do not seem to be combat-ready mecha, yet if I understand correctly your war has been going on for millennia. Surely there is something more to this than meets the optic sensor.” 

“I’m not telling you anything,” snapped Heatwave. 

“Of course not,” said the Decepticon. “But one other thing. How long do you think your human friends will allow my imprisonment?”

“They know all about you.” Heatwave turned his back, ignored the purred, “Oh really,” and stormed out of the room in search of Kade. His company was at least more tolerable. Even if Haley was around.

 

* * *

 

The interrogation continued.

Granted, it continued in a much more private nook of the warship, with cubes of high-grade energon. It wasn’t terribly good, recently refined and harsh, but Optimus sipped his cautiously all the same. He most certainly didn’t want to get overcharged around this mech. 

Megatron was smiling at him. 

It was giving him the creeps. 

Or that might have been the warship, the great dim halls and the eerily similar mecha that populated it. The way Starscream smirked at him. The sense that there ought to be many, many more people in its corridors. 

But the jagged shark-like smile was doing no good whatsoever. 

“I admit that it’s a bit harsh,” said Megatron, gesturing to the cube Optimus held. “But we’ve been at war for four million years. I’m sure you understand.”

There was an unspoken question in that. A push to get him to prove himself. Optimus glanced at the cube, even less willing to drink its contents.

“I’m not a flightframe,” he said. “My energy requirements are significantly lower than yours.”

Megatron laughed. “Neither was I, upon a time,” he said. His engine revved, filling the small room with the roar of a fully fueled flight engine. “I saw to it that it didn’t remain that way.”

Optimus tried not to make a face. He put the cube down. “So,” he said. “What do you want, Megatron?”

“A little more about my charming guest,” said Megatron. “What brings you here, Optimus _Magnus?_ ”

Optimus picked up the cube, to have something to do with his servos. 

“Surely not simple diversion,” said Megatron. “You have, after all, arrived in the midst of a war.”

“A rather quiet war, it seems,” said Optimus. “Perhaps you could start explaining that, first.”

Megatron’s optic ridges rose. “Bold, aren’t you.”

Optimus shrugged. Raised the cube to his intake and thought better of it. “I have a job to do.”

“So your mate is on this planet.”

On instinct, Optimus reached across the sparkbond. It was strong enough to indicate Megatron was on the planet, but oddly confused. As if he were getting a response from more than one mech. 

He looked up at Megatron, whose optics had narrowed. He had a sense of cold curiosity, evaluation, across the bond. Appreciation, entirely unlike his own Megatron’s, and a very nasty thing almost like envy. A second mech overlaid on him, shy and kind and submissive. Intelligent, but easily deceived. Loyal. _He should have been mine!_

Quickly, he withdrew from the bond and closed it. The cube shook in his servos, and he put it down quickly, feeling sick. He didn’t know how to explain it, save that somehow, there was someone else in their sparkbond. Maybe even more than one. That wasn’t supposed to happen. Ever. Especially with something as inimical as what he’d felt. 

“Fascinating,” said the Megatron sitting across from him. With a sinking feeling, Optimus realized that he had felt it, too—and very likely was the other personality he’d sensed. 

“That’s one way to put it,” he said. He stood. “There’s no point in being anything but completely frank, Megatron. I want my mate back, and we will return to our home dimension. I have no interest in you besides that, and I would imagine the same is true of you. We’ll be of very little use in fighting a war, of that I can assure you.”

He was lying for that last part, he knew it, and he thought uneasily of the Magnus Hammer in these Decepticons’ servos. Worse still, the Star Saber. His jetpack. 

Megatron stood, too. Sauntered out from behind the table. “Oh, I doubt that,” he said. Optimus took a step back. Megatron moved with him, caught his chin in a servo, not smiling. Optimus stayed still, evaluating. This Megatron was heavily armored, far, far larger than him. He’d need to strike quickly, unexpectedly. Take a page from Black Arachnia’s book. 

“What did my counterpart do to retain you?” Megatron wondered aloud, tilting Optimus’s helm this way and that. “You even wear his brand. Your dentae are sharpened. You care for him. You wish to _protect_ him.”

“He earned it,” said Optimus, and bared his dentae. “You have not. Move it or lose it, Megajerk.”

“At whose hands? Yours? Your mate’s? Forgive me if I laugh.”

Optimus hit him in the face with a spray of fire retardant. Megatron sputtered in surprise and indignation and stepped back. Optimus jerked free, battle systems powering up. 

“Lord Protector isn’t a title I took for show,” he snapped. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

Megatron wiped the foam from his faceplate, shaking it off his claws with an expression of distaste. “It will take more than _that_ ,” he started, and Optimus lashed out at him with a grappler and zapped him. 

He brought the grappler back, quickly, before it could be grabbed. It hadn’t done all that much to him, but the expression of surprise on Megatron’s face was absolutely worth it. 

“That was a warning,” he said. “You will be polite, and you will keep your servos off me. Am I understood?”

Megatron laughed. “So that brand isn’t for show after all. I am impressed, little Magnus.”

Optimus bared his fangs right back. “Call me little one more time, and you’ll see _exactly_ how much a Decepticon I am.”

For a second, it seemed like Megatron might take him up on that challenge. Then the door beeped. 

Both of them spun to look at it. “Enter,” barked Megatron.

A long, spindly mech with a screen for a faceplate came in. They looked from Optimus to Megatron, then inclined their visor. 

“Soundwave,” said Megatron. “What is this?”

The visor lit up with a map of the eastern coast of the United States, rendered in blues and reds and purples. A red dot flared somewhere off the coast of the northern portion, and characters appeared next to it.

“An unshielded Cybertronian signal?” Megatron threw a grin over his shoulder at Optimus. “Well, well. It looks like we may have located your Prime after all. Optimus Magnus. Perhaps there is some point to us working together.”

He’d been in this dimension for less than six megacycles, but he had no desire to see what Megatron might do if he had both of them. What if he decided he wanted the Matrix? Optimus had little doubt that this Megatron would hesitate to rip it out of his alternate’s chest. 

But he probably couldn’t fight both of them unarmed. 

“Soundwave,” said Megatron, “Confine our guest in the brig. We wouldn’t want him doing anything…misguided, now would we?” He reached out and patted Optimus condescendingly on the top of the helm. “Don’t be concerned, we’ll find your mate soon enough.”

No. He had to do something. He lunged for Megatron first—

—and found himself hurtling head-first through a spacebridge vortex. He yelped, flailed, tried to retreat and instead landed hard on a floor that was hard and sticky. He bolted to his stabilizers, ready to fight, and found himself in a large dim space that smelled of rust and stale energon.

Chains hung from the ceiling. So did inactive stasis cuffs. 

This was probably the brig. 

Optimus looked up, at the chains and the single source of light. “Frag,” he said to himself, very quietly. 


	4. Chapter 4

He could still hear them, though they’d confined him in a separate room. He was also quite sure whatever they’d restrained him with was wearing off. Megatron smiled to himself, an expression that quickly changed when he heard what the little Autobots were talking _about._

“—That looks like Megatron,” Blades was saying, his voice very small.

“That’s because it is.” Their leader was trying to sound brave, unconcerned, and failed miserably. To Megatron’s trained audial, he sounded scared sparkless. “Our first priority is getting the town evacuated. We’ve got about ten minutes before they reach us.”

Megatron thought about his alternate finding these young idiots, and didn’t like it. He tried a wiggle of one servo. Not enough to get out. He rolled his optics, turned his vocalizer to its highest setting. “You know I can hear you,” he said. 

There was a small, frightened squeak from Blades. 

“And I don’t care,” snapped Heatwave. 

Megatron growled in irritation. “They’re after me, you idiots. My spark signature isn’t shielded; my people haven’t been at war for stellar cycles, and I’ve got the Matrix amplifying it. Let me out, and they’ll leave you in peace.”

There was a silence. 

“As if I’m falling for a whopper like that,” said Heatwave, but there were footsteps and the door opened. “Like Pit you’re carrying the Matrix.”

Megatron didn’t like this idea, but the satisfaction of making a grand gesture won over his distaste. He transformed the armor over his spark open. Smirked. “Proof enough for you?” 

They shrank back. 

“What did you do to Optimus?” hissed Heatwave. He looked horrified, his arms raised in a laughably exaggerated defensive stance. The poor thing had obviously had no real combat experience. 

If he had intended them ill, this would have been over in moments. But he did not, even if their attitudes made him regret this. 

“Nothing,” he said at last. “I simply hopped universes.”

“Yeah, right,” said Heatwave. Megatron closed his chest plating. 

“How old are you?” he asked, quite conversationally. He hoped their instruments had been accurate about his alternate’s approach. “All of you. Not counting time in stasis.”

Silence. They looked at each other.

Blades spoke first. “Five hundred?” he said. 

Megatron looked at Heatwave, who bared his dentae. “As if I’d tell you!”

“You don’t need to,” said Megatron. “I can guess. If you’re much over five thousand, then I am a scraplet. None of you is combat trained, that much is obvious. Let me put this in very simple terms indeed, Heatwave. I am here, in your base, unshielded. This Megatron is coming for an unrecognized spark signature. He will find me, whether I am here or outside. If you are also here, he will find you. And I am quite sure he will kill you.”

“You said there was a peace,” quavered Blades. 

“I lied,” said Megatron. “Don’t take it personally.” He returned his gaze to Heatwave. “You can release me, and I’ll leave. Or you can keep me, and Megatron will kill you and your humans.”

Heatwave glared at him. “Or you might kill all of us.”

Megatron glared back. “I didn’t say it was an easy decision,” he said. “That’s what being a leader is all about, Heatwave. The difficult decisions are yours.”

“As if I needed you to tell me that.” Heatwave collected himself. “Blades. Chase. Go help with the evacuation. We’re wasting time.” He straightened up. “We’ve risked our lives for this island before. We’re not afraid to do it again.”

“And I’m saying it’s unnecessary,” said Megatron. “I will draw them away.” Within him, he felt the Matrix, lending an extra depth to his voice. “You are Cybertronian. No matter the universe, you are under my protection. None of you will come to grief. This I promise.”

They were staring at him again. It was interrupted. “Uh, guys,” said Blades. “The immobilization beam? It’s uh, almost out of battery.”

Megatron looked at it thoughtfully, realizing he could turn his helm now. A little extra effort…

Heatwave stepped up next to Blades and turned the device off. Megatron, who had been leaning against its output, had to stumble rapidly to avoid falling on his faceplate. He stood, noting with amusement how much smaller the other bots were. “Very good,” he said. “Now where’s my sword?”

“The really huge one?”

“And my cannon.” He grinned at them. “You didn’t expect me to do this unarmed, did you?”

“I thought warframes could transform them,” muttered Heatwave, but Boulder and Chase were already coming back in with the weaponry. 

“Here is your confiscated property,” said Chase. “I must warn you not to fire the cannon within city limits, as the Artillery Resolution of 1877 expressly forbids that, and that you will be required to apply for a permit for any bladed weapon over six inches long.” He glanced into the next room. “However, under current circumstances I believe that requirement may be _temporarily_ waived.” 

“Noted,” said Megatron, who had no intention of doing any such thing. “Where’s the door?”

“This way,” said Heatwave. “But we’re going to have to explain the whole thing to Chief Burns.”

Megatron, halfway around the door, looked down at him and grinned. “I’ll leave that to you,” he said, knowing he sounded smug. He still rather enjoyed the way Heatwave bridled. So much like Optimus had been, only more indignant. 

He strode across the main room, stepping onto the elevator they’d brought him down. They boarded next to him—he gave them a suspicious look. “You would do better to hide.”

“We’re making sure the citizens of Griffin Rock are safe,” said Heatwave. 

Megatron shrugged. “As you please.” The lift started, carrying them up to the ground floor—and into full view of the human family. 

Megatron looked at the humans. 

The humans looked at Megatron. 

Megatron smirked. 

“As you were,” he said, and stepped out the open doors (though he had to almost bend double to do so), and leapt into the open sky, sword in hand.

He grinned. 

It had been far too long since he’d done this.

 

* * *

 

 

“Heatwave,” said Chief Burns, surprisingly calmly under the circumstances, “Why did you let him go?”

Heatwave had been dreading explaining this ever since he agreed to this harebrained scheme. Chief Burns could look just as disappointed as Optimus Prime could, and though the expression was a little bit different, it still made you feel like a scraplet. 

Chase stepped in instead. “Whoever he is, this ‘Terminus’ bears the Matrix of Leadership, as Optimus Prime does. When he heard about the approaching Decepticons, he insisted on going to stop them.”

Chief Burns looked at Heatwave. “And you decided to trust him?”

Heatwave looked away and nodded. “He…did have the Matrix,” he said. “And his spark energy is unshielded, which probably means that he’s the reason the Decepticons found us in the first place. The further away he can get from this island, the better.” He didn’t know if Optimus had explained the Matrix to Chief Burns. He didn’t want to explain it; he prided himself on not being superstitious, and besides, even if the Burnses were family, there were things you didn’t say. There were things that humans, however much you cared about them, wouldn’t understand.

Chief Burns did not look happy. “Well, I guess we’ll have to trust your judgement. In the meantime, let’s get the town evacuated.” He hesitated. Heatwave didn’t like his expression. 

After a moment, he said, “Optimus gave me specific instructions on what to do if this happened. You will not be participating in the evacuation—go back downstairs and wait. It’s shielded. If we’re wrong about the Decepticons being here for our friend, and they’re actually here for you, they won’t be able to find you down there, and the citizens will be safe.”

“But…” started Blades. Chief Burns frowned at him. “No buts, Blades. Downstairs, all of you.”

Heatwave wanted to argue. Blades, Chase, and Boulder all looked at him. They were expecting him to argue, hoping he would. But Chief Burns was right. He sighed. 

“Do it,” he said, hating the words but knowing it was the only option. 

 

* * *

 

 

With the use of his grapplers, Optimus found he could grab and climb the chains hanging from the ceiling. From there, there was an accessible ventilation shaft that terminated about three meters up in a thick grille he couldn’t budge. 

So much for that. He dropped back to the ground and frowned up at the whole assembly. There _had_ to be something useful there, somewhere. Perhaps he wasn’t looking in the right place.

He made a full circuit of the cell, noting with interest the control panel in one corner. Interesting. He wondered what it controlled, looked it over and experimented with using it. He was locked out, of course. It required a crewmember’s authorization to do anything, and beeped at him in an outraged fashion when he tried guessing the code. He was tempted to kick it. He refrained, and went back to circling the cell.

The third time around, he found the generators for the stasis cuffs. At least, he guessed they were stasis cuffs, by their placement intended to hold a prisoner spreadeagled in the center of the room with their stabilizers dangling. 

Probably what the control panel was for.

Optimus found himself grinning broadly. He hardly had to climb _at all_ to dislodge the first of the cuffs—there was a physical component, it turned out. Big enough he almost went flat on his faceplate when he detached it. Hopefully this would work, and this alternate Megatron wouldn’t decide to confine him in them. If he did, Optimus would fry like an Earth egg. His circuits most certainly wouldn’t be able to handle the charge. 

But they were certainly big enough to restrain the alternate Megatron. 

He doubted he’d have the time to place more than one. 

He set about dismantling the panel. Certainly, the usual user interface was out of the question, but one didn’t spend as much time as he had around spacebridge technicians without picking up a few things. 

He tweaked wires. He played with settings. He attached one of his grapplers and sent a surge of energy through it, and to his delight it did exactly what it was supposed to. Then he put everything back that he didn’t need, and settled by the door to wait.

Maybe he’d been spending too much time with Strika. Maybe he’d been doing far too much political nonsense, settling arguments, dealing with glitchmice. Either way, this was the most fun he’d had in solar cycles. 


	5. Chapter 5

Megatron threw his helm back and savored the cold thin air. At this altitude, Earth’s atmosphere was almost like Cybertron’s, before the war. Before Sentinel’s idiocy in the final battle had so polluted its atmosphere. 

But there was a job to do. 

He could see the distant light of sun on armor, silver and moving fast. He smirked and waited, hovering easily in his root mode, arms at his sides, sword in one hand.

He wondered what it would be like to fight himself. He wasn’t much concerned, mostly interested. He wondered what he might have been in another world, without the Matrix or Optimus. The Matrix itself offered hints, ghosts of memories from alternate Optimuses and older Primes, and he pushed them aside. The Matrix knew these things through biased lenses. He would make up his own mind. 

His alternate came into view, a sleek jet of some sort with two wings of purple fighters trailing him. He laughed. 

“I would think you would have at least the dignity to come alone,” he called. “Or are you afraid of me?”

The jet banked to circle him. He could make out a helm on its dorsal surface. A true Cybertronian alt mode, then. Interesting.

“Why assume I’m an enemy?” his alternate asked. “I have your consort aboard. He is safe and waiting for you.”

Megatron didn’t do him the dignity of turning to watch him. “So you know who I am.”

“Megatron Prime.” His alternate stopped to hover in front of him. “Yes. Optimus was most forthcoming.”

“Was he now. Why has he not accompanied you?”

A snort. “You would suggest that I carry him?”

“I have, many a time.” So Optimus did not have his jetpack, and his alternate didn’t know about its existence. Interesting.“He is insistent.”

His alternate chuckled. “Yes, indeed he is. But he will not be able to get himself into trouble just now—he will be kept safe.”

“Will he now.” He couldn’t keep the snarl out of it. He didn’t like the sound of that. He didn’t think Optimus would be easily restrained, and there was no need to keep him safe.

“Come now,” said his alternate. “Don’t give me that. You and I both know that of the two of you, Optimus certainly won’t be doing the protecting. It was certainly wise of you to allow him to the post of Protector nevertheless—kept him out of the way, didn’t it.”

Megatron laughed. “Oh alternate,” he said. “ _You_ are in for a surprise. In the meantime, I assume you mean to take me into custody.”

“You do want to see him, I presume?”

“Of course. But not, I think, as your guest. Come, alternate, let me see if you fight as well as you talk.” 

“We will land, then,” said his alternate. “Unless you think you are only effective in the air?”

“Landing,” said Megatron, still grinning, “works perfectly well for me.” 

His alternate didn’t transform until he’d landed. Megatron could see no hint of jets on his ankles, and concluded that the mech might have no flight jets in his root mode. A hinderance. He was impressed that the mech had managed so much without easy flight, but he had yet to meet this universe’s Optimus, so perhaps they were after all evenly matched. 

“So, alternate. My mate. I would like him returned.” 

His alternate had purple optics, jagged dentae—not his own elegant sharpened incisors, which, these days, Optimus saw more of than anyone else did. And there was something about the air around him, something that tightened Megatron’s intake with dread and made the Matrix shift uneasily around his spark.

“I’m sure you would,” said his alternate. “But I am not inclined to simply _give_ him to you, not if you are unwilling to cooperate with me.”

“And I am not happy to walk blithely into another’s hands.” Megatron drew the Star Saber, twirling it in a show of nonchalance, then setting into a far more business-like guard. “Now, alternate, let’s cease the posturing. You mean to fight me, do you not?”

His alternate shrugged, drawing the sword sheathed on his own back. Megatron’s optics narrowed. The blade was strange. It glowed purple, and a chill swept over his armor. “I will happily grind you into the dust of this filthy world, if you so insist.”

“I insist,” said Megatron, and held his own sword two-handed in front of him, the tip lowered to the ground. It was a taunt. It was a taunt that invited a single sort of attack, a blow sweeping down from above the opponent’s head that would leave him wide open and unguarded against most other attacks—and Megatron was delighted that this style of swordplay was constant between universes, because his alternate launched just such an attack.

Megatron flicked the point of his blade up and his alternate had to sidestep, quickly, in order to avoid skewering himself. The dead cold of the other sword swept over him again. “What is that?” he demanded, even as his alternate brought it down on him. He deflected it with a tilted blade, lunging forward so his opponent was forced back. 

“Do you like it?” His alternate locked their swords, the barbs on the unpleasant thing in his hands catching the Star Saber between them, and leaned in. “Forged from the blood of Unicron the Destroyer, I call it the Dark Star Saber.”

Megatron made a face at him. “You should not be allowed to name things.”

His alternate laughed at him, mocking. “And what would you call your own sword, Megatron Prime?”

Megatron was for a moment lost for words, because there were simply too many good options. Reluctantly passing up, _that’s for Optimus to know and you to envy_ , as far too vulgar, he instead said, “I carry the Star Saber itself, the sword of Solus Prime.”

His alternate laughed harder. “My Dark Star Saber has already sundered _one_ sword of Solus Prime, one wielded by a far greater warrior than _you._ ”

“Please cease calling it that,” said Megatron. “It is _stupid_. The very _name_ indicates it’s a pale copy of another thing. Alternate. You can do better.”

His alternate responded by slamming the pommel into his jaw, which really, Megatron supposed he deserved at that point. 

He staggered back, reeling somewhat, saw his opponent advancing on him. “Unicron’s Bidding or some such slag,” he told his alternate, wiping energon from his mouth. “Prime-bane. Really. _Dark Star Saber,_ my _aft._ ” 

And if his alternate was this bad, what the frag was Starscream like? The mind boggled. The processor rebelled. 

His tanks were going to rebel, too, given that blow his alternate had just landed on him. It had disequilibriated something or other, and be damned to Optimus saying he was old and needed to take better care of himself. 

Here was his alternate, right on top of him, raising his sword above Megatron’s head. “Prime-bane,” his alternate said, and smirked. What an overdone sharpening job on his dentae. He looked as if he’d gotten prosthetic dentae from a sharkticon. “That, I might accept. Perhaps you should be the one to make such a name a reality.”

Megatron looked up at him, sighed heavily, said, “I don’t have time for this,” and blasted him with his fusion cannon. 

Later on, he reflected on his tone, and concluded—not without considerable resignation—that Optimus’ mannerisms were, indeed, rubbing off on him. 

In the meantime, his alternate had been blown backwards though, unfortunately enough, not badly hurt. He pushed himself to his stabilizers and leveled the cannon again. “This day,” he said, very firmly, “will not be yours.”

“Do not be so certain about your success,” growled his alternate. “Sooner or later, you _will_ have to come to reclaim him, and on that day I will not be caught by surprise.”

“You will be if I kill you here,” said Megatron, his cannon charging with a whine. 

His opponent raised his as well. “If you think anything but mutual destruction will result from this, alternate, you are sadly mistaken,” he said. 

“Then perhaps…” Megatron was interrupted by the sound of a groundbridge behind him. He made the mistake of turning to see what it was, and his opponent’s cannon blast clipped his shoulder, slamming him back and into the ground. 

Not a fatal wound, he thought, feeling at it; one shoulder was badly mauled, but nothing that a medic couldn’t put right. But it had clipped a major energon line, and he was leaking fast enough his systems were trying to shut down to conserve energy. His first override didn’t work; dimly he realized someone above him was firing their weapon, but couldn’t quite find it in himself to care. The darkness yanked him down, and his efforts to resist were useless. With a snarl, he surrendered to the inevitable; a brief glance upward showed him a masked face and worried blue optics.

_Hah,_ he thought. _All Optimuses look the same worried, regardless of universe._

His systems, agreeing with his belated assessment that he was an idiot for letting his guard down, slipped him fully into stasis. 

* * *

 

Optimus could hear Megatron’s alternate coming all the way down the hall. He scrambled quickly into position, the stasis cuff clutched in both hands. 

The doors snapped open. What a disappointment it must be that they were automatic, Optimus thought; from the expression on the alternate Megatron’s face, he would dearly have liked to slammed them open.

“Your consort somehow manages to be still more pathetic in battle than _you_ ,” the alternate Megatron announced to the room. “He had to be _rescued_ by Optimus Prime. After refusing to come to your aid. That says a great deal about how he values you.”

Optimus swung down from his perch above the doorframe, catching Megatron by the wrist with the stasis cuff and snapping it into place. He reached out with his other grappler and pulled the lever that controlled the cuff; with a yell, the other Megatron was yanked off his stabilizers and hauled, one handed, into the air. The commotion brought the creepily similar guards into the room at a run; Optimus transformed and drove between the two of them, skidding into the corridor with the alternate Megatron’s curses behind him. 

Now just to get off the ship.


	6. Chapter 6

Megatron learned later they’d taken him back to Griffin Rock and the worried young rescue team, that Ratchet’s alternate had been summoned and done a rapid, blasphemously narrated patch job, jabbed an energon line in to the crook of Megatron’s elbow, and stormed back to base to reiterate the importance of not turning your back on an enemy to the rest of Optimus’s team. 

Optimus went to talk to Heatwave and Chief Burns and frown in a concerned way at Heatwave about trusting a Decepticon.

Megatron learned all of this from Blades, in between long, nervous ums, and ers, and “what’s it really _like_ being a warbuild, don’t you get scared, ever?”

Megatron, still aching (Ratchet had not given him a pain chip, due to a short supply and a desire “not to reward slag-headed idiocy”), peered balefully at the small orange ‘copter. “Of course I get scared,” he said, resentement in every word. “But not of people like that. I’m getting up.” 

“Ratchet said you shouldn’t get up,” protested Blades.

“Ratchet is not here, correct?" He waited for a nod. "Then he can’t hit me with a wrench." Megatron levered himself up, and walked over to the Cybertronian-sized bookshelf. Mostly Earth children’s stories. He’d had more than enough of that from Sumdac. It was a wonder Sari’s processor was as functional as it was. He reached for something that looked remotely less juvenile, and flipped it open.

“You should be in berth,” insisted Blades.

“I have not gotten so far in life by paying attention to _should,”_ said Megatron, staring at _A Young Person’s Guide to Flowers of the Maine Coast._

“I’ll get Optimus.”

“I’m trembling with terror,” said Megatron, and turned a page.

“Even if you _are_ Megatron, you can’t just ignore your doctor!”

“Watch me.”

“I’m getting Optimus!”

“You do that.”

Blades left, presumably to follow through on his threat. Megatron frowned at the insipid little book. If an Optimus not his own cared to have an argument about his wellbeing, so be it. But he would not be confined to a berth while his dear mate was in danger. However able his own Optimus was to deal with that danger.

The Cybertronian-sized lift at the end of the room hummed, and Optimus Prime entered the room.

Megatron all but dropped the book he held. 

Relief, was his first thought. Utter relief, because his Optimus would never look like this, never become this. Had rejected this. Because, through the Matrix, he could feel a ghost of the other, could see where this Optimus had armored himself, hidden and strengthened his spark to bear the grief of a people. 

Millions of years of war. Millions of years of death. Only an echo of this Optimus’s spark, but it wrung his own and made him feel small and tired. Megatron himself had only been a Prime in peacetime. His own Optimus had made sure of that.

But this Optimus was not only a thing of grief. There was something wondrous about him, a pinnacle his own Optimus would never achieve. Mecha would follow this Prime to certain death, however painful. He was kind and stern, a grave, steady consideration in his optics that made Megatron want to live up to whatever he might expect—even with his version of the Matrix pulsing in his spark. For a moment, that gaze made him feel small. That he had taken the easy path. 

He smirked instead. Rolled his shoulders and let the gears pop. Or crunch, in the case of the right. That might have been an error. “Optimus Prime, I presume.”

Optimus had paused, a flicker of surprise crossing his faceplates, repressed it as soon as it appeared. It must have been very great indeed to elicit that much response, thought Megatron, and again flinched at the idea of his own Optimus turning into this mech. 

“Heatwave did not inform me that you carry the Matrix,” Optimus said. His voice was deep, far deeper than Megatron’s own Optimus. It twisted his spark. He wanted to hate this version of Optimus, hate the Matrix for twisting him into this, but at the same time, Optimus’s mere presence so far outstripped anything he’d experienced. _Yes. This is a mech who might make me believe in the divinity of Primes._ An uncomfortable thought, but he had never believed in sparing himself those. 

“I am not surprised,” said Megatron. “It would have sounded particularly implausible. Especially about a mech wearing this.” He tapped the Decepticon brand over his chest. “Your war is ongoing?”

“Yes. Heatwave informs me that you call yourself Terminus. While I will not require you to reveal your true name to any others, I would appreciate the honesty.”

It was an order, not a request. Megatron didn’t care. There was no point in secrecy from this mech, one who quite possibly knew him better than anyone save his own mate. “I am Megatron Prime.”

“I thought as much.” Optimus dropped his gaze. “Why are you here, Megatron Prime?”

“My only guess is a spacebridge malfunction. I will focus on correcting that once I know where my traveling companion has gone—my Lord Protector, Optimus Magnus, was separated from me at the time of the crash. I am greatly concerned for his safety.” Interest and alarm together on the other Prime’s face. Megatron clarified, “He is my conjunx endura. You may understand my urgency.”

For a fraction of a second, the other Optimus looked as if he’d run a blade through his spark. 

After a moment, he said, “I very much fear the Decepticons may have him—we did not pick up his energon signature, as we did yours.”

Megatron shrugged. “No matter. He knows Decepticons. He commanded them in my absence, _and_ led them to victory.”

“I have no doubt of his abilities. However, your counterpart may not be as reasonable as you yourself are.”

“Elaborate.”

“What is my counterpart like?”

There was something there, a tension in the way Optimus asked, that alarmed Megatron into giving an honest answer. “Small.” He indicated with a hand Optimus’s height. “Inclined to deference whenever he can get away with it. Painfully polite, at times. When pushed, not a good mech to cross.” He grinned briefly, remembering Optimus with the Magnus Hammer, defeating Megazarak as if it were _fun_. “A brilliant tactician.”

But Optimus looked far more grave than he had before. “Before I received the Matrix,” he said, “I was much like the mech you describe. This universe’s Megatron, I believe, has yet to come to terms with this change. I am concerned that my counterpart’s demeanor will draw Megatron’s interest unduly.”

Megatron wanted to dismiss the notion, but couldn’t. Even if Optimus had defeated far worse. 

His bold words to his alternate earlier came back to him, and his spark clenched with dread. _Have I gravely misstepped?_

He could not bear to lose another as he had Terminus. “I see. When will we begin?”


End file.
